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Harker: Finding what I want to be

Jessica Harker, Editor-in-Chief

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Were you one of those people who grew up knowing exactly who they wanted to be when they got older? Were you one of the lucky few who, when asked in 4th grade, proudly said firefighter, author or painter and stuck with it ever since? Well, I wasn’t.
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. I jumped from author to lawyer to first female president. I even tried paleontologist on for size, but nothing seemed to fit. Even when I came to UT I became a communication major simply because I knew I was good at public speaking, and it was a pretty general field.
So this is how I was, wandering aimlessly through a degree I didn’t think I cared about, when I applied for The Independent Collegian. Well, technically when my friend badgered me into applying for the IC and I reluctantly gave in. That would have been a little over a year ago.
Now I am the Editor-in-Chief, having moved quickly through Associate News Editor and News Editor in only about a year. It was a quick learning curve, and at times almost unbearably stressful, but always worth it.
But now I know what I want to be when I grow up. Being a reporter here at the IC sparked a passion I have never known before. Now I have been given the opportunity to help run the paper, and I’ve never been more grateful.
Getting the opportunity to be the Editor-in-Chief of the IC is something I could have only dreamed about. Being only a third-year student in the fall would make me one of the youngest EICs the paper has had, which means I won’t have a whole year of experience most others in the position have had, which is both exciting and nerve racking.
Thank God I won’t be the only one working here.
I could never have accomplished anything this year if it wasn’t for the amazing group of people I get to work with. Every day I am impressed by the amount of passion, skill and creativity that my coworkers have and bring to the table every week.
This is a huge transitional year for us here at the paper. We are losing a lot of really talented and exceptional people including our general manager, managing, sports and copy editors as well as our personal vagrant editor and layout guru. It’s going to be hard to come back in the fall knowing that so many of the people I’ve come to know and love won’t be around every Tuesday night.
But I will, and I think that is how you truly know you’re doing what you should be doing with your life. When your friends no longer work with you and you feel like you’re alone, if you still get excited about doing what you’re doing, then you’re in the right place.
The thing about the IC is it’s not supposed to be a place that you stay for too long. People come and go every year, gaining the skills and experience they need. It’s all about the learning experience.
On the other hand, some of us end up here for most of the time we spend at UT, sometimes even longer. We continue to grow and learn every year, become experts in the IC and everything it encompasses. We are definitely the minority here, but also an important element to its sustainability.
Even my academic adviser, who has truly been a huge factor to my growing success and confidence in what I am doing, warned me to not let the paper overrun my life. But how could I not? I think this stems from a misconception that when you throw your whole heart into something you truly care about you’re going to let other things fall through the cracks, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting the paper overrun my life.
If I’ve learned one thing from this, it’s not to worry if you don’t know what you’re doing right now. For a lot of people, myself included, you won’t know until it smacks you in the face.
At the same time, don’t settle for mediocrity, either. Don’t allow yourself to be comfortable in a position that doesn’t consume and excite you. Don’t work without passion. Once you find your niche, you will be able to go above and beyond even your own expectations of yourself, and you’ll finally be able to answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grown up?”

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